Chapter 29 Cade
CADE
Hearing Ansel scream is almost as bad as seeing him tied to that chair.
Come on, I urge mentally, holding myself as still as possible. Fucking come on.
Then I hear it. A footstep. A single one. “What do we do—”
Orin doesn’t get to finish his sentence.
A bullet finishes it for him.
I sit up, my gun already raised. Two quick pulls take Vex’s kneecaps out. He screams at the pain, blood spurting from his wounds. I’m on my feet before he hits the floor, rushing over to Ansel.
“How…” Ansel is completely speechless as I go to work on his ropes. “But…”
“Bulletproof vest,” I say quickly, trying to undo the knots as gently as possible.
His hands. It has me wanting to get started on torturing Vex right now, but Ansel’s my priority right now.
“I’m sorry I scared you, butterfly. We needed to make sure the gun wasn’t pointing at you when Harley took his shot. ”
Ansel blinks dazedly. “Harley?”
“Hey.” Harley appears next to us, his sniper rifle slung across his back. All around us, I can hear my brothers approaching. Harley’s face pales as he spots the injuries Ansel’s sporting. “Fucking shit. Sure I can’t shoot this cunt too?”
“No,” I bark. “He’s mine.”
I move to the clamps on Ansel’s hands and falter. How the fuck am I going to do this without hurting him?
“Just do it,” Ansel pants. “Talk to me. Tell me what just happened.”
I swallow back bile as my fingers go to work. “They messaged me saying where they’d taken you, saying I was to come alone in two hours.”
“Trust you not to follow orders.”
I try to smile, but it’s hard when Ansel’s hurting. “Nah. I’ve never been very good at that. Why let them think they’re calling the shots when we are?”
A clamp comes loose, and my heart breaks as Ansel sobs.
I keep talking as I work, desperate to keep him distracted.
“Wylder, Matthias, and Dalton took down the guards outside while I came in to distract them from what was happening. Harley was busy infiltrating the first floor. He’s the best sniper among us.
He couldn’t take the shot until the gun was pointing away from you though.
That’s why I let Vex think he’d killed me. ”
“You’re…an…idiot,” Ansel gasps through his agony.
“Hey, I had a vest on. You should be proud.”
Ansel glares at me, quite a feat given how swollen his eyes are from tears. “What if he’d aimed at your head?”
I shrug. “Well, then we would’ve had to hope Harley’s trigger finger moved faster.”
“It would’ve,” Harley says confidently. “I would’ve killed the fucker before he took down Cade.”
I’m on the final clamp now. “But it only worked because you warned us about the house, Ansel. We wouldn’t have been able to get away with the plan if we didn’t know about the bugs.”
Ansel didn’t just refuse to betray my family; he protected us.
And now I’ll protect him for the rest of my life. It’s my solemn vow.
The last clamp falls to the floor, and Ansel can’t contain his pain. A fresh wail bursts from him as his shoulders cave forward.
Behind me, there’s a curse followed by a gunshot.
“He’s sadly still alive,” Samson says gruffly. “Just removed an elbow for you, though.”
I don’t comment, too busy watching Ansel’s face closely, my heart aching as the waves of pain wash over him. Frustration pricks through the field of rage surrounding me. “Don’t we have anything we can give him?”
Matthias calls out to Wylder, who’s still outside. A few moments later, he’s beside me, the bag from the car clutched between his hands. He assembles a syringe quickly before giving Ansel a reassuring smile. “Just a small prick and all the pain will go away.”
Ansel chuckles weakly. “Think I can handle that.”
He can. My butterfly is so fucking strong. All this pain they put him through, and he didn’t break.
“Put tourniquets on Vex,” I mutter to Wylder. “Don’t let him die before I’ve had my fun.”
Wylder’s no doctor, but we all know enough about battlefield injuries to make do. More often than not, our skills are called for in situations just like this.
When we’re not ready to let our enemy die.
Wylder goes to do that, leaving me to inject Ansel. I insert the needle into the crook of his arm and press on the plunger. “Don’t worry, my love. This will make you go to sleep now, and when you wake up, you’ll be safe.”
“Why do I feel like this is déjà vu?”
“Because it is. Now sleep. You’re safe.”
“I know that,” he says, half-dazed from pain, and the other half from the drugs now flooding his system. “I’m with you. You’ll always protect me.”
Ansel is asleep upstairs, tucked in, and being cared for by Dr. Ramsey. I know he’ll take care of Ansel, make sure his hands and arms are put back together again. I was very clear that he needed to do the best job he could.
He just glowered at me until I left the room.
Fuck, the sight of Ansel’s hands will forever be etched into my memory.
Bruised, crooked, bleeding. It makes fury rise up inside of me, my vision turning red, my breathing labored.
I take the steps two at a time down to the cellar.
It’s where Wylder stores all his wine, whiskey, and aged cheese.
But in the far corner is a small hidden space where we bring the worst of the worst, where I can give in to my most deviant impulses.
With Vex, I can’t fucking wait to set them free.
A door sits hidden behind a row of shelves, something innocuous, something most would overlook. Wylder spent a fortune putting this in, and whoever built it did a damn good job.
I roll the shelves aside, find the small keypad, and punch in the numbers.
They beep red, and I grumble. “Changing the fucking code. Goddamnit.”
I call Wylder, and he answers quickly. “What?”
“What’s the fucking code for the damn basement door? Did the company change it?”
Wylder sighs. While we were getting Ansel back, Wylder had a company come in and do a sweep of the property to remove all listening devices and bugs. They’re still working through the house, but the main spaces are all clean and taken care of.
“No. Neo must have just changed that to fuck with me. Neo!”
I hear a rustle and some curse words, but Wylder eventually tells me with pain in his voice.
6969
It would be funny if my butterfly weren’t upstairs languishing and in pain. Right now, the only emotion in my body is fury. Something I plan to harness soon.
I hang up and enter the code, the light buzzing green.
Pushing the heavy metal door open, I inhale. It smells like death in here; blood and vomit.
Good. I want Vex to regret the day he was ever born, the day he ever thought to involve Ansel in any of his schemes. To threaten him. To lay a hand on him.
I want to send his body back to the Umbra Syndicate to let them know what I did to their top enforcer. And what I plan to do to them as well.
When I enter, I see Samson and Harley in the room, the two of them busy with everything other than the man tied to the chair before me. Samson is playing with his knife, tossing it at the wall while Harley cleans his gun. Both have been waiting for me to arrive.
“About time you made it. Samson was getting itchy.”
“I’m fucking bored,” Samson grumbles.
“Well, either way. We saved him for you,” Harley adds, lifting his gun and sighting down the weapon. “The dude has been very annoying though. Keeps crying. Saying please. Very unbecoming of an enforcer in a criminal syndicate. I expected more from you, Vex.”
“He should be crying,” I murmur, and then pull open the bag I brought with me. Inside it is a variety of tools I can’t wait to use.
Hm, which one? Decisions, decisions.
I decide on a large club that’s studded with sharp metal pieces and place it between my hands. Vex’s eyes widen when he catches sight of it, a whimper moving through him.
“Do you know what this is?”
He doesn’t answer, but Samson grumbles, “I’m sure you’ll tell us. You and your fucking weird-ass facts.”
“Facts are essential to life. So, yes, I will tell you. This is a cudgel. Famous in Medieval Europe. They were used in peasant uprisings as they were cheap to make.” I twist it in my hand.
“I got this at an auction. Paid out the nose for it, but fuck, it’s a great find. Even has the original iron spikes.”
Without warning, I smash it into Vex’s bloody knee.
He screams, snot and spittle flying. The sound of it all brings a grin to my face. Blood gushes from his wound, splattering my hands and arms.
“What a fucking mess,” I say, and then I do it again to the other knee, feeling the flesh and bone crunch against the spikes I drive into him. I pull the cudgel out, and bone and skin come with it.
“God. Shut him up,” Samson grunts. “He’s giving me a headache.”
“Put in your earphones. I’m enjoying the screams.”
Samson sighs but pulls out a small case from his pocket, turning on some music and pushing the earphones into his ears. He fiddles with his phone, and then his head starts to bob slightly. Then his feet shuffle. He moves awkwardly, his hand with the knife waving through the air.
All I can say is my brother is a terrible dancer. He should take some lessons.
“Hey, Cade, let me see that,” Harley says, setting his gun down and extending his hand toward me. “That’s a cool weapon. I want one.”
“It’s been available for use, but none of you have ever had any interest.”
Harley takes it and flicks a piece of bone off. “Well, I had no idea how cool they were in actual combat. Maximum damage. I like it.”
“I quite enjoy them too. But look at this one. I just acquired it a few months ago. It’s a kanabō.” I show him the thick, dark wooden Japanese club. It has iron bands wrapped around the length, and spikes glint in the dim light of the small room. I know that with each swing, pain will surely come.
Harley oohs and aahs over it as I give him a brief description of where it’s from.
But I’m not going to use this. Not yet. It’s too similar to the cudgel. Instead, I pull out a maul and sigh in happiness.
“Fuck,” I moan. “This is going to hurt so bad, Vexy.”
The man restrained on the chair is trembling now, much like I think Ansel was when he hurt him. It only makes me angrier.
“But first, music.”
I pull out a speaker and put on some nineties tunes that vibe with the moment—ones that speak about revenge and anger.
It makes my skin hum with anticipation.
“Now, before I smash you to bits with this, why don’t you tell us what Umbra’s end goal was here?”
“Never,” Vex sneers.
“Why stay so loyal to a syndicate that hasn’t come to rescue you?”
“Fuck off. I’m not telling you shit.”
“I won’t lie, I’m kinda glad you’re not giving in straight away. Means I get to do more of this.”
The maul comes down on his thigh, and he screams, but I don’t stop.
I just slam it into him, over and over, his skin splitting open, blood and flesh spilling onto the floor.
Vex is mostly unconscious now, but it doesn’t stop me from completing this.
Each swing is retribution for my butterfly, for the pain he put him through.
He will be nothing but rot on the floor when I’m done with him.
I pause to stretch my back and give Vex a final chance to speak. It won’t save him. Won’t even stop me from delivering the maximum amount of pain.
He signed his death warrant and method of execution the instant he targeted Ansel.
“Anything you want to say before I remove your tongue?”
Vex is barely conscious, but he manages a few words. “Umbra won’t give up.”
I bare my teeth at him. “Then I won’t rest until every one of them is as dead as you’re about to be.”
I unleash myself once more.
The Umbra Syndicate will regret ever messing with us. We haven’t had much of a chance to look into the information Ansel found, but we do know that we didn’t take out the key players today.
Vex and Orin were nothing more than chorus players. We’re after the directors. None of us will rest until the entire organization is brought to its knees.
Samson is bobbing his head in the corner, his feet trying to tap out a dance. Harley is examining the weapons I handed him as I continue to slam the maul into Vex.
And when I’m done, my chest is heaving, my body covered in blood and matter. Vex is nothing but a fragment of a human. His body is slouched over in the chair, his head smashed in, his extremities littering the floor.
The Umbra Syndicate will only get a part of him. Now, what part, I don’t know. The rest will be buried in shit.
I crouch down and cut off a finger, one with a ring on it. And then I take off his kneecap and a bit of his ear. “We’ll mail these to the Umbra Syndicate with a warning. They chose the wrong family to target, and this is only the beginning.”
“Good plan,” Harley says, using the kanabō as a bat and taking Vex’s head off entirely.
Harley whoops as if he just hit a home run, and the door to the room opens with a hiss.
“Jesus, what the fuck did you do?” Wylder asks as he steps inside and takes in the mess I made.
“Revenge,” I say calmly.
“Seems you had fun. Did you get anything out of him?” He eyes me, my body covered in Vex bits, and he sighs. “Actually, we aren’t doing this yet. Go shower. All of you. And Samson, stop dancing. It’s hurting my brain.”
Samson pulls his earphones out and frowns. “Fuck off.”
Wylder levels him with a flat look. “Just do as I say and then meet me in my office. I need to know what you all found out.”